The Cornell Tech Roosevelt Island Campus Project –- a partnership between Cornell University and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology –- has emerged as one of the most promising products of the Applied Sciences NYC Initiative and very much so as a “hopeful pillar of Silicon Alley.” Architectural renderings and design principles are sure to excite those tracking the innovation district model as an approach to economic development. The campus master plan aligns with the innovation district platform, purposefully integrating characteristics overwhelmingly identified in the literature. The Cornell Tech Campus will inevitably advance the larger innovation ecosystem conversation, helping to answer whether innovation can in fact be designed. The campus also begs the question if urban campuses inherently exhibit innovation district tendencies.

Temporarily situated in the bustling Chelsea neighborhood, Cornell Tech’s permanent home –- a redefined urban campus that will be “intimately integrated – in both mission and design – with the city” –- will eventually occupy 12 city-owned acres on Roosevelt Island and boast an equally impressive two-million square fopt real-estate portfolio, a healthy amalgamation of academic, residential, commercial, and public spaces upon completion in 2043. The first phase, slated to open next year, will feature 2.5 acres of public plazas and greenways and 800,000 square feet of building space.

Cornell Tech embodies several innovation district characteristics and even appears to favor one of the innovation district typologies identified by Katz and Wagner: the re-imagined urban area model, which places innovation districts along historic waterfronts in evolving industrial or warehouse corridors. This typology typically encompasses a comprehensive re-development project, as is the case with Cornell Tech, which is replacing the Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital and Nursing Facility. The universities will also act as anchor institutions.

Government-Sponsored Innovation District

Moreover, the proactive measures taken by the City of New York have enabled the realization of the Cornell Tech Roosevelt Island Campus. The City awarded the Cornell/Technion consortium access to the city-owned property on Roosevelt Island as well as $100 million in city-backed capital to be used to develop the site. The public investment will spur the creation of new firms and thousands of new jobs in addition to billions of dollars in economic impact. The New York City Economic Development Corporation estimates the Cornell Tech campus will “double the number of graduate engineering faculty and students in the city, and increase the number of engineering Ph.D. students by 70%.”

The City of New York and Cornell Tech leadership clearly recognize the importance of cross-sector relationships. Harvard Professor Michael Porter suggests that there is inherent overlap between the public and private sectors’ success and the need for both to support productivity. The lines of appropriate investment are blurred due to a linked wealth-creation system between these two sectors. Applied in the innovation district context, this supposed linked system manifests as the “Triple-Helix thesis,” which connects university, industry, and government partners.

Innovation District Characteristics

At this stage in the planning process, three buildings support Cornell Tech’s status as an innovation district. Including:

The long-term success of Cornell Tech will similarly be determined by how the market responds, including additional third-places to create a more interactive environment to attract more visitors in the surrounding community.

Conclusion

Cornell Tech is positioned to function as a successful urban campus and an innovation district because of the purposeful strategies, from physical design to intended industry mix, that have been prescribed in its plans. Immediate innovation district competitiveness is questionable, however. Given the 2043 completion date, we must closely monitor cross-sector interaction and collaboration over the next couple of years. Cornell Tech leadership must then integrate new and reformed strategies to better perfect the innovation district model as conditions on the ground change. Although in its infancy, the forthcoming Cornell Tech will likely demonstrate that innovation districts can in fact be inorganically conceived.

Here in Atlanta we’ve seen the innovation district materialize on the Georgia Institute of Technology’s campus. Education and research are coupled with office and retail to construct a“premier high-tech business neighborhood.” Cities like Barcelona, Boston, and Chattanooga have joined Atlanta in hosting the phenomenon of the innovation district, which has emerged in recent years as an attractive economic development and urban regeneration tool to spur job and wealth creation, innovation, and quality-place making within modern urban centers. As we dissect the structure of these districts in an attempt to define a replicable and adaptable implementation model, we discern that they vary widely based on leadership, cluster-type, and firm-support programs.

Lessons from Chattanooga

Left with a deteriorating city center following the rise of suburbanization and expansion of the interstate-system, Chattanoogans welcomed the twenty-first century with a number of downtown redevelopment projects in an effort to reaffirm the city center as a place that is“authentic and evolving, lively and attractive, diverse and engaging, dignified and celebratory.” The most notable effort included the creation of an innovation district as an attempt for the city to leverage its strengths and resources to emerge as a hub of innovation in the knowledge economy. While the traditional innovation district model positions eds-and-meds as the anchoring institutions, Chattanooga’s foothold is its ultrahigh-speed fiber optic Internet services managed by the city’s public utility company. Internet speeds in Chattanooga areapproximately 50 times faster than average speeds in other areas of the United States, making the city especially attractive for high-tech firms.

We learn from Chattanooga that traditional innovation district models can vary in urban environments that differ by size, location, and resources. Thus, as we seek to create a leadership model for the burgeoning innovation district, we must be mindful that the list – and extent of involvement – of public, private, and civic institutions will likely be a function of a city’s unique composition. Chattanooga’s unique contribution to the innovation district space is its government-affiliated non-profit that exists with the sole purpose to support the innovation economy via the city’s innovation district.

MIT is intentional and deliberate in its use of place-making strategies to strengthen Kendall Square’s contributions to the innovation economy as well as its sense of place. In short, the university leverages its own talent and resources to fulfill the visionary role of the planner and innovator. The Institute’s definition of community also expands its property boundaries, which enables it to provide benefits to a larger public. Thus, we learn that Kendall Square not only functions as an innovation district. It also serves as a living laboratory for urban-planning strategies that serve public-policy and built-environment purposes. As other entities create new innovation districts or expand existing ones, a similar approach to that of MIT should be taken.

Lessons from Barcelona

22@ Barcelona is a prime example of a predominantly government-led innovation district model. The project emerged asan urban renewal initiative in Poblenou, a blighted industrial neighborhood, over 15 years ago, and now stands as a massive hub for knowledge and innovation. Since the innovation district’s establishment, it has becomehome to more than 7,000 companies and nearly 100,000 employees. The revitalization effort was also an attempt to aggregate international and local firms in a more concentrated geographic environment with hopes of fostering increased collaboration.

The most important takeaway from Barcelona is the particular validation of innovation districts as a sustainable urban economic regeneration tool. Through strategic programming and a robust planning model that emphasizes the physical, social, and economic, the City of Barcelona has created one of the most successful innovation districts in the world. Similarly, other districts must have an entity comparable to that of the platforms in Barcelona that specifically oversee business-assistance programs. This type of program will make districts more competitive and also facilitate the success of start-up firms.

Innovation districts are a sustainable economic development and urban regeneration tool for cities in the knowledge economy that differ on countless levels – from city size and anchor institution to the degree of government support. Moving forward, additional case-studies should be compiled to reveal more common themes for these districts, but it can already be shown through examples such as Atlanta, Chattanooga, Boston, and Barcelona that the innovation district is a powerful tool for urban flourishing.